


A Flash in the Pan

by thor20



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Crack, Gen, Soul Stone (Marvel), everyone's just chillin, just a little drabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 03:41:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15404151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thor20/pseuds/thor20
Summary: Peter Parker figured that the afterlife wouldn't be so bad, if he was with these people.He didn't account for Flash Thompson.





	A Flash in the Pan

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little soul-stone drabble to celebrate breaking 100 kudos on my first fic, [To the Edge of Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14741510). Literally wrote this at 4 in the morning - sorry if it's shitty, I just thought the premise was funny. Might expand, might not. We'll see.

“So what happened to you?” said the Falcon.

“I died.” Peter shuffled a bit where he stood, hands wringing. “Same as you.”

“Sorry, man.” After a brief pause, broken only by the moan of wind on the water, Falcon added, “Hey, at least it was painless.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Falcon stared. “What do you mean?”

Peter gestured vaguely at himself. “I have… enhanced senses,” he said, his voice cracking on the last word. He swallowed his tears. “I could feel it. Everything.”

“Jesus Christ, kid -”

“It - it was subatomic, that sort of thing - I could feel it down there, like an itch, then a stabbing pain, then… then it was like being burned _alive_ -”

His hands were shaking. Slowly, without asking, Falcon reached out and grabbed them with both of his own. “I’m sorry, kid,” he said softly. “I know that won’t do shit -” Despite himself, Peter huffed a laugh. “But I mean it.”

“Thanks.” He paused awkwardly, and added, “Falcon. Sir.”

The man gave him a slow, kind smile. “Call me Sam,” he said.

  


Their silence was broken by gunshots, echoing across the pale orange water. Sam immediately tensed up. “Stay behind me,” he told Peter. He slowly moved off towards the source of the gunshots.

“Yeah, okay. Fine with that.” Peter peeked around Falcon’s massive wings and tried to see the desert before them. “What do you think -”

Sam held up a hand for silence. “Sorry,” whispered Peter. Sam nodded once, scanning the water again.

A few more shots rang out. Then more. Cracking like a whip across the water, strangely uniform and consistent. Sometimes there were pauses between shots; sometimes they followed right on the heels of each other. It felt like a pattern.

Peter realized it a split second before Sam did. “Morse code,” he blurted out. “What’s it mean?” All he’d caught was an “E” and a “S,” and even then he could be wrong. He only knew Morse code because of decathlon, and it wasn’t something that MJ wanted to spend time on.

Sam was quiet for nearly a minute, listening to the shots. They stopped, and the world was silent for a moment - until they began again, repeating the pattern. “B,” he translated softly. “A…” His shoulders tensed. “Oh, hell,” he muttered, suddenly breaking into a fast jog and folding up the wings of his exosuit. Peter struggled to keep up, his feet dragging in the mud. The gunshots continued.

“Hey!” Sam yelled. “Hey, _hey_! You dumbass, stop wasting your fucking ammo!” Peter gave him an alarmed look - the last thing they wanted to do was antagonize someone with a loaded weapon.

A figure came into view on the horizon. “I know you got more guns on you than a military convoy,” Sam shouted, “but that doesn’t mean you get to shoot your name into the sky like some 1920s bank robber!”

The figure turned; metal gleamed. “Sam?” he called.

“Yeah, who else?”

Peter said, “Who -”

But now the man was running towards them, holstering a pistol, and Sam was sprinting, and they met in the middle in a bro-hug for the ages, thumping each other on the back and cussing each other out. Peter stared. The man had a metal arm.

“Bucky Barnes?” Peter blurted out.

The two men turned to face him. “Yeah,” said Barnes. “That’s me. Who are you?”

“Uh - Spider Parker,” Peter stammered. “No - Peter Man - no -”

He groaned and covered his face, mortified. The two men smirked at him. “Spider-Man, huh,” said Barnes. “I figured. Bad time, but sorry for kicking your ass in Berlin.”

“Feeling’s mutual,” Peter said fervently. “I - I mean, I had a great time, but that was before… well, before I knew what was really happening.” Barnes gave him something almost like a smile.

“So, Morse code, huh?” Sam said.

Barnes shrugged. “Figured it was worth a shot. Fired my name in blanks until you two came running.”

“Think it’ll work on anyone else?”

  


“Dude, are those metal friggin’ wings?”

“Yes, these are metal friggin’ wings,” Sam said to Big Peter, thoroughly unimpressed. “Are those sideburns? In the year of our lord 2018?”

“It’s 2018 down there?” Big Peter said, aghast. “Holy _shit,_ time flies.”

“I am Groot!”

“I am _not_ old!”

“Yes you are,” Drax said, calmly braiding Mantis’s hair. She seemed to be enjoying it, even though her hair was in a bob and there wasn’t much to work with. “You are so close to death that you feel it’s a waste to watch your eating habits. One more fried okabesh and you -”

“I am Groot.”

All of the Guardians fell silent. “Well, when you put it that way,” Big Peter admitted, scratching the back of his head, “it’s not so great.”

Groot nervously laced his fingers together, staring at the rippling water below.

“What did he say?” Bucky ventured to ask.

Quill’s lips tightened. “He said that we’re all dead anyway,” he said dully. “So it doesn’t matter.”

They fell silent.

“Is that the man with the friendly cape?” Mantis suddenly piped up, pointing into the distance.

“He’s got friends,” Big Peter said. He scowled, one hand on his gun.

Peter whipped around. “Holy shit,” he breathed. Sure enough, the wizard was wading through the water towards them, accompanied by a man in all black and a woman in red. He hopped up and down, waving his arms. “Doctor Strange! Hey, Mr. Strange Sorcerer Supreme, sir!”

Behind him, he heard Drax ask Quill, “ ‘Holy shit?’ Is the sanctification of excretement common on your planet?”

“Drax, just a phrase, just a _phrase,_ ugh…”

  


Bucky said, “So what you’re saying is, we’re fucked.”

“Watch yo profanity,” muttered T’Challa, in a strangely modulated voice. Wanda snickered. Peter’s head whipped around. The King of Wakanda just quoted a Vine. A _Vine._ Wakandans were _cool._

“Essentially, yes,” Strange said. He and his cloak were twin pictures of disgruntlement. “We appear to be in either the Astral Realm or the Soul Stone, or perhaps both. I don't know which, but I knew this would happen, which helps a bit -"

“You _knew_?” Bucky said coldly. The steel in his voice made everyone stop moving; Drax even dropped Mantis’s hair. “How?”

“Long story,” Strange said. He grimaced and locked his hands behind his back. “A long, long… _long_ story.”

  


Strange’s first order of business was to lift an assload of sand out of the water and arrange it into a makeshift island. Glad to finally take some weight of his feet, Peter flopped down on the sand, staring at the strange orange sky.

He’d died looking at an orange sky. Here he was, looking at another one. Points off for originality.

“Who’s that?” Wanda said suddenly.

Peter looked up, following her pointing hand. Two figures were struggling through the waters towards them, one tall and one short and childlike. “Hopefully a friendly,” Barnes said, though his hand still drifted towards his guns.

“I am Groot,” said the tree.

“Don’t tell him what to do,” Big Peter said. “He can’t understand you, anyway.”

“What did he say?” asked Barnes.

“Oh, he told you not to shoot first, ask questions later. Which makes him -” Big Peter fixed Groot with a disdainful glare. “A big fucking _hypocrite_. Don’t you remember Vrellnix?”

“I am _Groot._ ”

“C’mon, you’ve said worse.”

“She’s _green_ ,” T’Challa said to himself, not paying attention to either of them. His mask was up, and he was probably zooming in on the approaching figures. “There’s a little girl, and a teenaged boy. The girl has _green skin._ ”

He turned to the Guardians, who had all gone eerily still. “Do you know her?” T’Challa said, the mask folding back.

Big Peter dropped his blaster in the sand. “Gamora,” he breathed. Then, louder, loud enough to echo across the water, he screamed, “ _Gamora!”_

The approaching figures froze; then the smaller one broke away and started sprinting towards them. Peter watched her come and couldn’t tear his eyes away. It looked as if she was running on the water. The boy with her hastily followed, as if he didn’t want to be left behind.

“Peter!” the girl shrieked back. Big Peter waded in the water and raced towards her.

“That’s Gamora?” Peter said to Mantis, who was hovering near his elbow, tears in her big eyes.

“Perhaps it is,” Mantis said uncertainly. “It looks like her, just… younger. She was an adult when Thanos took her...”

“Oh, God, Gamora,” Big Peter was saying, as he picked up the tiny girl. Peter’s enhanced hearing helped him pick up the words. “This is weird, this is so _weird_ , oh God, why are you _here?_ ”

Gamora put her head on his shoulder and said nothing for a long while. “Just don’t kiss me,” she said softly.

“Oh, ew, no,” Big Peter sputtered. “I wouldn’t do that. Blech. Who are you?” Those last words were directed at the kid who’d accompanied her, a shorter kid around Peter’s age with… with long-ish dark hair and sunglasses...

Peter froze.

“Uh - I’m Flash Thompson,” the kid said. “Hi.”

“Oh, _fuck_ no,” Peter said loudly.

Flash’s head whipped towards him. “ _Penis?_ ” he yelped, leaping away. He stepped backwards into the water and cringed audibly, but made no move to walk back out. “Penis Parker, what the hell are you _doing_ here?”

“Okay, that’s rude,” muttered Wanda.

“What’s it to you?” Flash sassed, putting his hands on his hips. Peter slowly brought his hands to either side of his head, gripping his hair until it stung. This was a joke. It had to be a fucking joke.

“You’ve got to admit, that’s kinda clever,” Big Peter said. Tiny-Gamora punched him in the side of the neck and glared, hissing something in his ear.

“Is that a… thing, for you, Flash?” Dr. Strange said, completely ignoring Peter. “Naming people after things you don’t have?”

“Hey!” Flash said indignantly.

“His real name is Eugene,” Peter said snidely. Drax threw his head back and guffawed. Even Wanda let out a few snickers.

“Shut _up_ , Parker,” Flash fumed, turning to glare at him. His face suddenly froze, and Peter had a strange sense of… was that vindication? “Is that - why are you wearing a Spider-Man costume?” he asked, pointing at him. “That’s - that’s all wrong, Spider-Man doesn’t have metal on his suit -”

Okay, that was it. Peter lifted his hand and shot a thin strand of web at Flash, managing to hit his sunglasses, and tugged them right off his face. Behind the sunglasses, Flash’s eyes were wide with shock. “Why don’t you tell him, he’d be glad to prove you wrong,” Peter said blandly.

All Flash could do was stare at him. “You’re - you’re -”

“I’m what?” Peter said expectantly. “Penis Parker? Pretty sure I heard you saying that a lot.”

Flash opened his mouth, thought better of it, and closed it again. “You’re Spider-Man?” he finally wheezed.

“Yup,” Peter said, popping the P.

Flash was silent for a long, long while. Drax started to yawn. At last, Flash squeaked, “You _stole my dad’s car!_ ”

“Ugh, not this again -”

“ _And crashed it!_ It was a _brand new Audi!”_

“Ouch,” said Dr. Strange.

“And - you’re _Spider-Man?_ ” Flash said, louder this time.

Dr. Strange rolled his eyes. “Say it again, I’m pretty sure they didn’t hear you outside the astral plane,” he drawled.

“Yeah, I’m Spider-Man,” Peter said, spreading his arms. “Not the way I would’ve told you. If I had it my way, you never would’ve known, but it’s just rotten luck.” Flash hadn’t torn his eyes from Peter this whole time. His mouth seemed permanently locked open.

Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he fainted, falling into the water with a splash. Gamora giggled.

Peter sighed and shot some web at the front of Flash’s shirt, dragging him out of the water. “Great,” he said flatly. “Just perfect. Spending the rest of eternity with my high-school bully in tow. What a way to live. Or, uh, die.”

He grimaced and scraped off the web fluid on Flash’s sunglasses with his fingernails. Damn, these were expensive ones. Flash had been wearing these on the field trip. Briefly, Peter wondered who else on that bus had been dusted. Maybe he’d find them in here. That’d be pretty awkward. Not how he would’ve come out as Spider-Man - if he’d ever chosen to reveal himself.

But still. Half the life in the universe. Unlikely that he’d run into anyone he knew here - at least, at first. He sincerely hoped Flash was a fluke. He slid on Flash’s sunglasses and glanced around. Big Peter gave him a thumbs-up. He grinned back. Maybe this wasn’t completely terrible.

On the ground, Flash groaned and opened his eyes again. He saw everyone staring at him and promptly fainted again.

Peter grimaced. Okay. He wouldn’t jinx it any further.


End file.
